The 41-year-old Assistance League of Stockton is renovating its Harding Way thrift store and doubling it in size to more than 8,000 square feet. To learn more about the organization or to offer assistance:

The Assistance League of Stockton has developed a half-dozen ways of helping the community:

• Operation School Bell: This is the signature philanthropic program for the National Assistance League. The Stockton chapter jumped in in 1989 and has clothed more than 22,400 children in need since then. Each child receives three pairs of socks, underwear, two polo shirts, a sweatshirt, a warm jacket, a grooming kit and a $15 gift card to Payless Shoes.

• Kids on the block: Thirteen volunteer puppeteers address such topics as bullying, divorce/separation, abuse and tolerance. In 2012-13, 28 schools were visited, and 6,380 students viewed puppet shows.

• Book buddies: A dozen or so volunteers listen to struggling readers. It is San Joaquin County's only volunteer reading program whose participants listen, but do not read, to children.

• Operation Rescue: League members supply other charitable organizations — such as the Red Cross and Women's Center-Youth & Family Services — with $25 vouchers for clients needing clothes.

• Assault survivor kits: Assault victims treated at San Joaquin General Hospital are offered clothing and other necessities when they are released.

» Social News

STOCKTON - The Assistance League of Stockton, operator of a thrift store with a purpose, is taking a giant step forward in the months ahead.

The nonprofit organization is more than doubling its showroom floor space to 8,000 square feet and renovating its Harding Way location in an ambitious, opportune project.

"Now is the time. Thrift stores are booming," Assistance League President Robin DeCoite said. "We have hope and determination. Our philosophy for Stockton is to meet the needs of the community."

The expansion project is challenging and not cheap.

Once finished, the thrift store will occupy the west wing of the building it owns, the former site of Plascencia's Family Market. A wall must come down first, and the old market's interior shell needs a makeover.

Transforming half a city block between West Sierra Nevada Street and West Lane is being made possible through private donations, $69,000 in contributions from the group's members and a $30,000 city Facade Improvement Grant.

When it is finished next spring, Big Bird, the thrift's nickname because of its distinctive yellow exterior, will be no more. The new look will feature a blue-and-white exterior. And there will be off-street parking.

On the inside, the thrift store will feature more than the traditional glassware, clothing and knickknacks. The new Assistance League thrift will be expansive and more professional-looking. Furniture and other large items will be for sale.

"We have too much in storage and not enough on the floor," said Ilona Richenberg, chairwoman of the renovation project.

A centerpiece will be a wooden, circular checkout counter that just two weeks ago was the property of the now-closed Coldwater Creek store, a women's clothing retailer that ceased operations in north Stockton at the end of July.

"The changes will improve the property and the neighborhood," DeCoite said. "And help with our main mission to help families and children."

The local Assistance League became one of the nation's 120 full-fledged chapters in 1973. It is operated entirely with volunteers, and the thrift store is a means to an end.

The organization has identified six philanthropic projects for Stockton. One stands out.

Operation School Bell, the largest outreach, provides needy children in kindergarten through third grade with a new set of clothes and school supplies. Last year, 1,181 children were decked out by the Assistance League.

In a separate building behind the thrift, a long-ago cobbler's shop has been converted into an Operation School Bell staging area and place to try on clothes.

It represents the well-organized approach the Assistance League has taken toward everything it does. The nonprofit group has 100 members, 50 active core volunteers and a quartet of women - they're called "The Four Belles" - who are in charge of Operation School Bell. They are Nancy Caplin, Jermaine Case, Peggy Sadek and Dixie Mulrooney.

"Operation School Bell is the heart of our philanthropic program," said Camilla Wolak, a volunteer who handles public relations.

Making the thrift store larger is one way to raise more money to help schoolchildren whose families can't afford new clothes each fall.

The Assistance League has a sweet-sounding name for its expansion project: ROSE. The acronym stands for Renovation, Occupation, Shop Expansion.

The women who make up the membership are for the most part in their 60s or older. Some of them have been volunteering for decades.

Why are they still at it?

"It is incumbent on me as a human being to give back," Wolak said. "The pat answer is that I love my community. I used to tell my kids when they were growing up that it was important to be productive, contributing members of society."

And there's the ripple effect.

Assistance League volunteers love to tell stories.

One is about the older, south-side woman who comes in regularly and spends hundreds of dollars on each visit. When asked what she does with so much stuff, the shopper said she gives it away - to her less fortunate neighbors.

Another woman buys and buys and gives and gives at her church. Thrift store volunteers also have been known to run outside the shop to hand out shoes or socks free to passing pedestrians in need.

Then there's retired warehouseman Larry Brown, also a south Stockton resident and an expert glass collector. A year ago, he donated 105 big boxes of crystal, fine art and antique glass to the thrift store. Retail value: about $45,000.

Brown was motivated by the Assistance League's singular purpose to do even more to help the city's poorest residents, particularly its underprivileged children.

His gesture has been inspiring.

"We have these friendships forged, friendships retained over our lifetimes," the 66-year-old DeCoite said. "And we are still committed to caring."

Wolak, who's 74 and has had knee replacement surgery, jumps in. "We've somehow managed to hang together with Band-Aids and Bengay," she said.

From 67-year-old Richenberg comes the reminder: "And we have so many great programs."